Forte Minerals Corp. (CSE:CUAU, OTCQB:FOMNF) has finalized a property transfer agreement with Compañía Minera Ares SAC to acquire 300 hectares of land, the company announced.
The property was transferred to Forte Minerals subsidiary Amaru Resources SAC, with Ares retaining a 0.5% net smelter return royalty, which is subject to a buyback by Amaru for US$500,000.
Forte, through Amaru, also staked an additional claim block of 1,000 hectares in the adjacent area to the northeast and contiguous with the main property to protect the possible northeastern extension of the porphyry system undercover.
That means, for the first time in a decade, Forte now controls the entire porphyry alteration area at the Esperanza project, which encompasses 4,000 hectares.
"It has taken a while since the initial negotiations began with Ares, but perseverance has paid off,” CEO Patrick Elliott said in a statement. “We are delighted to finalize a deal on this critical ground at Esperanza. In the end, our team was successful in closing a deal that was beneficial to both parties.”
Amaru successfully completed the social and environmental studies for the drilling application at Esperanza, which was submitted to the Peruvian Mining Ministry in late 2022, the company said. Approval for drilling is expected by end of the second quarter of 2023.
The next step is to deploy a magnetotellurics ground geophysical survey consisting of 68 stations, of which 40 stations are separated by 250 meters over the core of the system and 28 stations are separated by 500 meters on the periphery.
The goal is to explore for deeper conductive targets associated with porphyry hydrothermal alteration and secondary copper enrichment below the Miocene post-mineral volcanic cover.
“The Esperanza copper-molybdenum project is an exceptional undrilled Paleocene aged porphyry system in the Southern Perú Copper Belt that exhibits all the alteration and mineralization signatures and scale of a robust and preserved porphyry copper system comparable to those seen at Cerro Verde, Quellaveco and Cuajone,” exploration manager Manuel Montoya said.
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